Old films, new eyes

Tom Hanks

So a young couple makes a real estate investment to live their dream, and then everything that could possibly go wrong with that choice does. That sounds a lot like The Long, Long Trailer to me. Only this time it’s Tom Hanks and Shelley Long, and the house doesn’t roll. (Probably.)

Unlike that movie, a lot of the problems turn out to be disastrous unexpected costs, rather than just ruining their marriage, which probably happens too, because money is the top reason couples fight.

It occurs to me that while this is significant in the zeitgeist, or at least in the Hanksgeist, I’m not sure in what way. It gets referenced as something anyone who knows about Tom Hanks should know, but I’m not sure if that’s meant as a high point or a low point. Opinions will differ, but is it an adorable action comedy masterpiece, or that time Tom Hanks had to spend an hour and a half yelling at a dog? People seem to expect me to know already. Maybe I will now.

PSA aside, a time when the internet was new but probably safe enough, not something fearful. A time when Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan could be Hollywood’s most bankably romantic couple yet again by somehow meeting online without knowing each other’s real identity, and this is a good thing. Yay technology. Continue reading →

It’s easy to forget that Tom Hanks is in this movie because he’s overshadowed by two big stories: “Disney creates the Touchstone label to distance its core brand from edgier stuff like Splash“, and “Daryl Hannah is gorgeous”.

I think that before The Little Mermaid, it was a common assumption that mermaids were blonde, but I understand that there was a point when this movie owned the image of what a mermaid looked like to the extent that mermaids were blondes because Madison was a blonde, instead of the other way around.

I expect that 28 years later, this movie will look like a soft PG that you might see on Nickelodeon in the afternoon.

I was kind of expecting this to be funnier than the show (which I’ve never seen, but am familiar with through homage), but I didn’t know when I first selected Dragnet that it’s intended to be a parody. Maybe if I was a fan of the original show I’d be worried, but Dragnet plays to parody so well I see a lot of potential to be the definitive parody (displacing the Stan Freberg audio sketches).

This movie seems to afford an increasingly rare opportunity to see Tom Hanks do comedy.

This is a big award-winning film. Tom Hanks’s first Oscar. Apparently he liked drama so much only Pixar can get him to come back to comedy anymore.

This feels like one of those safe messages that Hollywood likes to play with to net awards, but a lot has changed since 1993. The stance was more controversial at the time. Well, it’s still controversial, but the prevailing opinion is now more aligned with the film. I can’t really speak to how it was received because I was five years old at the time.

So much as I’m ever excited, I’m looking forward to starting something fun next week.

Once again, an 80s classic with an iconic scene. Another fantasy comedy. Recommended by the Zeitgeist and provided by a browse through the local library.

I expect to like this film, so I’ll probably be slightly disappointed. I’m not sure if I’ve seen any of Tom Hanks’s early comedy roles before, but even knowing about them, I wouldn’t have necessarily picked him for a story about a kid in a grown man’s body. It reminds me a little of Forrest Gump, but without the depth.